The ground in Myanmar was split and dragged in different directions during the massive 7.7 magnitude earthquake that hit the Southeast Asian nation on March 28. The quake tore a rupture through the earth's surface stretching for more than 460 km (285 miles), around twice the distance expected from a quake of this magnitude, according to scientists.

The map below reveals how much the surface moved in opposite directions during the quake, using data from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). The long surface rupture can be plotted along the contrasting sections of land, which shifted around 5 metres (16.4 feet) in different directions, according to the analysis.

The quake has killed more than 3,700 people, flattened communities and crippled infrastructure in the impoverished nation.

A month after the quake hit, nearly 200,000 people remain displaced and living outdoors, according to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), even as parts of central Myanmar are jolted almost daily by aftershocks.

"Myanmar's cyclone season starts within days, exposing coastal populations to strong winds and rains – leaving families to face the risks of floods and landslides," IFRC said on Monday. "Conditions on the ground continue to be very challenging."

The monsoon rains typically arrive in Myanmar by late May, possibly piling more misery on the displaced.

The speed of the massive rupture may have also played a role in the devastation. Scientists believe this was a "supershear" earthquake, a rare event where the rupture in the ground moved faster than the seismic waves produced.

“Preliminary studies indicate that the rupture was supershear,” said Dr. Judith Hubbard, Professor at Cornell University and co-founder of Earthquake Insights.

Earthquakes begin at a specific point on a fault and spread rapidly along it, usually at speeds of a few km (miles) per second. In this instance, scientists observed that the rupture spread even faster than usual.

“When an earthquake occurs, it does not happen all at once,” said Hubbard. The rupture constantly creates waves of energy that spread like ripples in a pond. If the rupture moves faster than these waves, they can pile up and form a Mach wave, similar to the sonic booms from supersonic jets, she told Reuters.